Our Little Artists

We were feeling lazy this year, so we decided to let Alyssa and Ashley take care of the pumpkin decorating. I saw a lot of people do this last year with their kids and since Alyssa always tells us she wants to be a painter when she grows up, we thought it was a good idea.Ashley didn't want to be left out of the fun. I was glad that I had a couple of mini pumpkins that I could sit on her high chair tray for her to paint.

Here she is at the end of the painting experience. It could have been a lot worse.
Here is Alyssa's masterpiece in the works.

And here is her final pose of the night. She was suprisingly paint free. Even on her hands.

Alyssa and Ashley had a lot of fun painting their pumpkins and we were glad we let them do it. It was also nice to skip a year of carving and just enjoy their creativity. We used the time to clean up the house. Here is a video of the fun.

There's Silence Upstairs

On Saturday, we watched our friends little boy so that they could participate in a service project. Danny and I had been sitting downstairs with Alyssa for a little while and realized that Hadyn and Ashley hadn't made noise for awhile. I went upstairs to check on them and found Ashley here...

and the books there...
We are pretty sure that Ashley learned how to get up there from Hadyn because she has never tried to climb up there before and it isn't the first time she has pulled all of the books off of the bookshelf. Hadyn and Ashley are always teaching each other bad habits.All I could do when I walked in the room was laugh and run for the camera.
If you are wondering why Alyssais in these pictures, she insisted on being in them when she saw me laugh so hard.

Curious George Live

On Friday we took the girls to see Curious George Live. They aren't big fans of the show or anything, but they are at least familiar with the show. Danny is friends with some of the staff at the arena where the show was, so I asked him to get us tickets (that is one of the perks we miss about Danny working at an arena).

Here is Alyssa waiting for the show to start. Alyssa loved the show. We even caught her dancing with the actors occasionally.

Ashley loved the first 5 minutes of the show and then became more interested in climbing in and out of her seat. Danny spent a good amount of the show out on the concourse with her, but that gave him a chance to visit with his friends. He did come back in for the last 20 minutes or so of the show, but they watched it from an area where Ashley could move around without bothering those around her.Here is a somewhat blurry shot of Curious George and the Man in the Yellow Hat.
Here are our princesses posing for a shot in front of the cotton candy stand.
We were getting ready to go outside when we stopped for the picture which is why Alyssa has her hood on. It's not very often that the two of them stop long enough to get a picture. I think the big monkey cutout was responsible for them being willing to do so for this shot. We love being able to do stuff like this for them.

Alyssa's Blanket

When Alyssa was about 9 months old, she found her comfort item. It was a blanket; a beautiful, soft, fluffy blanket. That blanket has been through a lot over the past 3 years.

But it is still very special to Alyssa. In the past 6 months or so, Alyssa has developed a new comfort item. Now, she has decided that she doesn't necessarily need, the blanket, just the blanket fuzz. Before I vacuumed one week, I picked up the collection of fuzz from under her bed.
She loves to roll the fuzz around between her fingers and unfortunately, the blanket is showing the effects.

We wonder when the day will come that she doesn't need any comfort items.

Story Time

One day while I was making dinner, I heard Alyssa say "Do you want to read a book? I will read it to you." So I watched as Alyssa sat down, Ashley sat in her lap, and Alyssa started reading the book to her (not really reading, just reciting what she remembers from looking at the pictures). I went in to take a picture and only got one before Ashley looked up and came to me to read the book to her. Right after that, Alyssa started crying because she wanted to read the book to Ashley. Sad how taking a picture to remember the moment totally ruined the moment.
I have seen Alyssa do this a few different times before I got this picture of them. I love it when they get along.

Grandma Beth

My Grandmother, Beth Allen, celebrated her 90th birthday last week. My Mom and her siblings put together a birthday celebration which took place on Saturday, in Utah. Unfortunately, we were unable to make it, but I wanted to take a moment to say how honored I feel to be her grand daughter. She is an amazing woman who has done some amazing things in her lifetime. She served a mission in the Salt Lake City Family History center when she was 80. She has traveled all over the world. Most of all she has a testimony of the gospel and is such an example to those of us who look up to her.
As part of the birthday celebration, my parents put together a book with pictures and birthday wishes from Grandma's children and Grandchildren. We all got a copy of this book to keep for ourselves. Since we didn't go to the party, we got our copy in the mail sometime during the week last week. I looked at it for the first time with Alyssa and while looking at pictures on the first page, Alyssa says "Mommy, that's you."
What do you think? I thought it looked an awful lot like me too. But it was on the page with the pictures of Grandma in different stages of her life. Here is a picture of me to show the comparison.

When Danny got home that night and looked through the book, he says to me "You look just like your Grandma!" He even showed it to Ashley and asked her who it was and she said, "Mama." I never realized that I looked so much like Grandma Beth. I only hope that I can be as similar in character as I am in looks. Happy Birthday, Grandma! We love you!

Grants Farm

Sorry for the dry spell in posts lately. We haven't been taking many pictures which means there is nothing to post. We've enjoyed having Danny home with us for the past 5 days. He has been trying to use up some vacation time before the end of the year and since we don't plan to go anywhere, he took a five day weekend. On Friday, we went to Grant's Farm. We had wanted to go and see it since the first time we visited St. Louis. It was a beautiful day to do it too. Here we are on the tram tour that takes us from the parking lot through the farm to the stop where you can get off and see some of the animals up close.

One of the highlights of the farm was feeding the goats bottles of milk. Here is Alyssa feeding one of the little goats. So cute.
Family Picture Opportunity.

Here is Alyssa in front of the miniature mules and horses.

Ashley and Danny in front of the parrots. They were startingto set stuff up for Halloween. If you look closely, you will see a scary Halloween Monster to the left of the bird, right by Ashley's head.

And how could we leave the farm without letting the girls ride on the Carousel...at least without dealing with a couple of meltdowns. It was the shortest $2 carousel ride ever (rip off), but at least they left the farm happy.

We were glad to finally go see Grant's Farm, but we decided that it was a much better activity with kids than it would have been back in 2004 when we had originally wanted to do it. We were glad that we saved it for now.

Visit from Aunt Shannon

Shortly after our visitors from Des Moines left, Aunt Shannon came into town. We were so excited to have her visit us. In the middle of her visit, Danny had a three day buisness trip. Shannon and I took advantage of those days and took a mini trip up to Nauvoo. Shannon had never been to Nauvoo, so she was excited to finally see it. Here are Alyssa and Shannon in the Nauvoo Post Office.

Shannon and Ashley waiting for Alyssa to finish playing dress up with the pioneer clothes.
Shannon took the girls on an oxen ride. She said the girls loved it. Here they are in front of the oxen and covered wagon.

Here is Alyssa on the wagon.

And here is Shannon with Alyssa and Ashley on the wagon ride.

After Danny got back from his buisness trip, we took Shannon into Downtown St. Louis to see the Arch. She wanted to take a ride up in it, but Alyssa and Ashley weren't patient enough to wait the hour that it would have taken. Here is Shannon in front of the base of the Arch.

Here she is with Ashley on the steps leading up from the Mississippi River to the arch.

We had a lot of fun visiting with Shannon. We played lots of Dr. Mario and other games with her and it was fun seeing the girls warm up to her. We are glad that she was able to come visit us.